ARPU for prepaid and postpaid wireless subscribers of Sprint Corporation 2012-2019

In the first quarter of 2019, the average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) of Sprint Corporation’s postpaid wireless subscribers was at 43.25 U.S. dollars, while the ARPU of retail prepaid wireless subscribers was 33.67 U.S. dollars. In recent years, there’s been a narrowing of the gap between the ARPU of postpaid and prepaid subscribers. How does Sprint compare to competitors? Overall the monthly price for a mobile contract in the United States has declined over the past 15 years from more than 50 U.S. dollars to less than 40 U.S. dollars. All of the major mobile carriers in the United States – AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile – have managed to keep their average ARPU for mobile postpaid contracts at 40 U.S. dollars or more though over the last few years. Of those four major service providers AT&T and Verizon are the biggest ones both in terms of revenue and number of subscribers. Sprint is currently in fourth place having fallen behind T-Mobile, which has been on a growth path in the United States. The planned merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, approved by regulatory agencies in 2019, is set to reshape the market though and will create a third major competitor for AT&T and Verizon in the wireless market. What is ARPU? The ARPU is a measure of the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers, in order to quantify the revenue generated by one customer using the telecom item per unit of time. It is a key figure for comparing companies competing in the same market or segment. For Sprint and other telecommunications companies, ARPU includes revenue generated from incoming calls in addition to revenues billed to the customer each month for usage.

在2019年的第一季度，Sprint Corporation的后付费无线订阅用户的平均每月收入（ARPU）达到了43.25美元，而零售预付费无线订阅用户的ARPU为33.67美元。近年来，后付费与预付费用户之间的ARPU差距逐渐缩小。那么Sprint与竞争对手相比如何呢？总体而言，过去15年间，美国移动合同的月均价格从超过50美元降至不足40美元。美国所有主要移动运营商——包括AT&T、Verizon、Sprint和T-Mobile——均成功将移动后付费合同的平均ARPU维持在40美元或以上。在这四家主要服务提供商中，AT&T和Verizon无论是在收入规模还是用户数量上均占据领先地位。Sprint目前位列第四，落后于持续在美国市场扩张的T-Mobile。2019年，监管机构批准了T-Mobile与Sprint的合并计划，该计划预计将重塑市场格局，并为AT&T和Verizon在无线市场中创造第三个主要竞争对手。那么什么是ARPU呢？ARPU是指总收入除以用户数量，用以量化单位时间内使用电信产品所产生的收入。它是比较同一市场或细分市场内竞争公司的重要指标。对于Sprint和其他电信公司而言，ARPU不仅包括从来电中产生的收入，还包括每月向客户收取的使用费用。